Present Tense
by ink and ashes
Summary: Shaundi is convinced that Johnny and the boss are certifiably insane. — "What's more important: avenging the Earth, or a pet Warden?" F!Boss, SR3 and SR4 spoilers.


**WARNING: **Language, sex, drug use, and casual homicide. Anything goes. Spoilers are everywhere. Try not to take it too seriously. Unbeta'd, written on the fly, just playing around with the characters.

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**PRESENT TENSE**

* * *

Shaundi has never seen the boss as a person.

The media paints her as a lawless sociopath without morals, without a conscience, and without a shred of mercy. There are reels of film kilometers long with the wild-eyed woman smeared with blood and rubble, laughing as she tore and slaughtered her way to the top. There are hundreds, _thousands_ of eyewitnesses eager to share their story, all of them brimming with details about a small Saint with a big gun and screaming explosions left in her wake. Jane Valderamma's entire career has become nothing but updates on the 'Butcher' of Stilwater and when the word 'sociopath' came up, all the boss did was pout at the television.

"'Sociopath'? _Ce n'est pas juste_. Why does Johnny get '_psycho_path' and I don't?"

Johnny's grin had been wide and toothy. "Don't take it personally, boss. Not everyone can be as badass as I am."

Shaundi had to agree with Johnny's assessment. She's no psychologist, but she knows they are _both_ certifiably insane, psycho- _and_ sociopathic maniacs that, in another life, would have scared the living shit out of her. She'd believed it then and she believes it now, and it doesn't matter how much fame and fortune they've garnered, what kind of products they've endorsed, or how much the lack of anything to do has dulled their knife-edged madness. Those two crazy fucks will always be batshit homicidal monsters—with _serious _control issues and a flagrant disregard for all forms of authority other than their own—that require straitjackets and meds just to function like normal human beings. Which explains the constant drug use—and thank fuck for that.

But even stoned out of her mind, she's not dumb enough to say that out loud. Unlike Pierce, who has alluded to his opinion of their fearless leader, which is stuck somewhere between 'terrifying' and 'not human', and he's had the golden barrel of the boss' favored weapon shoved down his throat enough times to let Shaundi know that her views on the unfathomable woman are best left unsaid.

It's not that Shaundi does not admire her—quite the contrary. Their queen bee is a soft-spoken French woman who walked away from a five-year coma to wreak havoc upon her old stomping grounds, freeing her best friend from death row and resurrecting a dead gang practically overnight. That woman is a goddamned phoenix, a goddess of gangbangers all over the world. Other than the mood swings and odd fixation with stripper poles, there's very little to _not_ admire about the head Saint. Shaundi doesn't even know her boss' real name, and she doesn't need to in order to follow her to the ends of the Earth.

But Shaundi has never—not once, not for the smallest fragment of time—thought of her as a person.

People have emotions, flaws, weaknesses. People don't step over, on, and through dead bodies without batting an eyelash. People don't pull the trigger on innocent bystanders and walk away with a smile.

People don't brush off the death of their best friend like it's nothing.

She doesn't mean to say any of this out loud. Ever. Shaundi values her life and values the relationship she has with her gang and its leader: distant, but friendly with an undercurrent of warmth. In hindsight, she thinks the grief and anger have made her irrational; she thinks the endorsement deals and leniency have made her tongue looser. She forgets herself, forgets with whom she speaks, forgets that this short woman that never raises her voice is much more frightening than any biblical hell that may await them.

She's been smacked before by asshole boyfriends and catty bitches from the old days, mostly. She's no stranger to violence. But she is shocked, hurt, and utterly terrified as she looks up. She cradles her face, sprawled as she is on the floor, felled by a mighty backhand from her pale-faced boss. The anger is still there and it roars to the surface, her righteous fury demanding that she repay the sentiment in kind—a knee-jerk reaction she viciously swallows because this is someone that can and will destroy her at the slightest provocation. Pierce hovers close, his hand on her arm like he's about to grab her and run for their lives. In another time and place, she would have laughed at his stupefied expression; right now, she kind of wants him to rescue her and she hates him, hates herself, hates everyone for her weakness.

"You stupid, _stupid_ girl," spits the queen of the Saints. Her voice is still soft, still sweetly curved in that accent she's always had, and it hurts Shaundi more than if she'd screamed.

_"I totally should have paid more attention in French. I can never understand half the shit you say." Shaundi is high on loa dust and drunk on a combination of some fruity drink and life, sitting at the bar with Johnny and the boss. She's young and happy and carefree, sporting her colors with pride alongside the two most powerful people in Stilwater._

_ "I think that's the point," quips Johnny, a rare grin on his face. He's fucked up too, but he's been perpetually fucked up ever since their war with the Ronin and no one has the heart to stop him._

_ The boss rolls her eyes and hides her smile in her shot glass. "I'd teach you, _mon amie, _but your attention span is horrible."_

_ "Bullshit," Johnny says, gulping down half of his beer. "She just doesn't want you to know what she's sayin' when she flirts with the bartender."_

_ "I do _not_ flirt." The boss is an amazing shade of red. "Ladies do not flirt."_

_ Johnny guffaws. "_You_ are _not_ a motherfuckin' lady."_

_ The boss punches Gat. Shaundi's nervous—she's never seen either of her bosses fight with each other before and with their tempers, blood is sure to spill, and she likes them both too much to prefer one's victory over the other—but her nerves are quelled once Johnny climbs back to his feet, still laughing, and reclaims his seat._

_ "I rest my case," he says, and the boss orders another drink, in English this time. _

The memory makes her chest hurt. "I—"

"Stupid, selfish girl. Do you think you are the only one that mourns him?"

The desire to defend herself overrides any self-preservation. "You act like nothing's wrong." Pierce's grip tightens, a warning she does not heed. "You, you've been more worried about losing your favorite shotgun than—"

"Imbecile. He is my dearest friend and I love him. For me, there is no loss greater than his and it does _not _fall to you to judge me." Her eyes burn at Shaundi. "We will get Loren where and when I say so. If you deviate from the plan, I will shoot you myself." And then, without the slightest tremor, she levels the barrel of her pistol between Shaundi's eyes. "Unless your sorrow is so great, you wish to see Johnny sooner rather than later."

"Boss," Pierce tries.

"Another word and you will join them."

There is a gun in her face, a serial killer glaring daggers at her while a petrified Pierce quakes beside her, and all Shaundi can think of is that one little word.

Love. Not _loved_. As if Johnny is simply lounging around headquarters back in Stilwater, feet up on the coffee table with a beer in his hand and a blunt between his lips. As if it doesn't matter if he's been dead for a day, a year, or a century. As if it's something that has always been and will always be—unashamed, unyielding, unchanging.

And then Shaundi remembers the hysterical fear in the boss' voice when that Ronin asshole had stabbed Johnny moments after beheading Aisha. She remembers how close those two would sit, how they favored each other with careless touches that meant nothing and everything. She remembers their banter, their contests, their one-sided arguments. The odd blush on the boss' face when Johnny would randomly hum '_Oh my darling, Clementine_' during drug binges and how, inevitably, she'd end up punching him for no viable reason. The way Johnny had been the only one able to sway the worst of the boss' decisions, and the way Johnny would only settle down once his crazier counterpart was near. Commonplace antics they'd all taken for granted that, as she drinks in the anguish on her leader's face, take on a different hue.

Shaundi's been looking for love her entire life and it's a painful sort of irony that a fucking _sociopath_ has already found it.

"Boss, I—" It's difficult to speak. She tries again. "I, I-I'm so—"

Long, quick steps take the Butcher of Stilwater out of the room and away from them before Shaundi can finish her stammering apology.

.

.

There's a mad glint in the boss' eyes. It's a pale shadow in comparison to the one that precluded the Stilwater gang wars, but this one is dripping with desperation, feverish and gasping with bloodlust.

It scares Shaundi because that's the look she was looking for not so long ago—shaking, shivering, deranged desire, hands twitching with the need to rip someone's head off. It's how she'd felt when they'd landed in Steelport, broke and missing one of their crew. But now that they've taken down the Syndicate, now that they've avenged Johnny, all that's left is a hollow ache in her chest.

But the boss isn't done.

Those eyes of fire and brimstone land on Shaundi and the slow grin makes her stomach churn.

Stilwater is the Butcher's home, but Steelport quickly becomes her slaughterhouse.

.

.

The _click-clack_ of heels on concrete tile gives away the visitor's identity before anything else.

"Shaundi."

There was once a time they would happily mill about in jeans and sneakers, maybe shorts on hotter days. Now, the boss favors stiletto heels that can gouge a man's eyes out and Shaundi goes for tasteful wedges that make her ass look fantastic. They're different from the people that ran Stilwater like it was their own playground. She thinks they've grown up a little.

"Hey, boss."

"Beautiful night, _oui?_" That's the boss' attempt at subtlety.

She's sitting on the pool deck of the penthouse, her feet dangling over the edge. Behind her, the music and laughter from the party trickle out through the glass doors. Steelport has become yet another addition to the Saints' empire and they're all taking a much needed rest before their leader starts renovations on her new city. Shaundi misses Stilwater, though—not that Steelport doesn't have its charms, but there are too many negative connotations here. The struggle for this place was harsher, darker, bloodier than the one for Stilwater. They've expanded their organization and there are too many new faces for this to feel like home.

The boss joins her, black Louboutins dangling alongside her strappy Manolos. Shaundi eyes the shoes and instantly deems them too plain for her flashy queen. "When did you buy those?"

"These? Mm, sometime after that stupid tiger ate my car. _Pourquoi?_"

"I don't like 'em."

"Well, my shopping advisor was otherwise occupied. I had to fend for myself," she jokes.

"You're not allowed to go shopping without me anymore." Shaundi takes in the plaid skirt, the button-down shirt, the long braid. "_God_, what are you going for, schoolgirl on menopause?"

The boss tosses her head back and laughs. "Tomorrow, you and I will take a day for ourselves. You may dress me as you see fit."

Shaundi smiles. They lapse into companionable silence, listening to whatever horrible song Pierce has decided to play. Slowly, she begins to relax; she hadn't known she was tense to begin with. It almost, _almost_ feels like old times. All they need is a cold beer, fresh bud, and Johnny to stretch out like a cat with his trademark sunglasses, badgering the boss to give him something to 'blow the fuck up'.

The aforementioned woman scoots closer to the edge, leaning over her knees. It looks like she's about to jump, and while Shaundi has seen her do so a few times, she's not wearing a parachute.

"Boss?"

"It is… tempting." Pale hair hides her face, freshly bleached for whatever reason. Shaundi's stopped wondering why her boss feels the need to reinvent herself every four hours; she'd spied a credit card with Image As Designed's logo and the name 'Boss Saint' once and never bothered to ask. "There is no greater rush than facing death."

She's never been a philosophical drunk, so what the hell is this? "Boss?"

"All of my life, I've searched for this… and I found it. And now it's gone, and _he's_ gone, and I can't find it again."

This is uncomfortable and tragic. Shaundi hasn't had enough beer to hear her boss like this. "Boss, I…"

And like a broken dam, a flood of rapid fire French pours from chapped lips and her boss is crying—fucking _crying_—and Shaundi flails in panic. She's confused and alarmed, wholly inadequate to deal with this. What would Johnny do? How would Johnny handle this? What is Shaundi supposed to do with this suddenly very human, very weeping woman next to her that may jump off of the building if she doesn't snap out of it?

But it's over as quickly as it began. Without another word, the boss stands and slips the pistol from her skirt, then starts unloading the clip into glass windows unceremoniously. Shaundi can only stare, agape, as various Saints scatter like roaches, diving for weapons and cover. The music stops when a bullet finds the stereo and hookers are screaming, scrambling for safety. Pierce is shouting for the boss, unaware that their mistress is the one behind the mayhem, and someone is calling for a medic.

The Butcher of Stilwater laughs. Somehow, Shaundi is comforted.

.

.

Time passes, life goes on, and somewhere along the line, Shaundi moves into the White House.

It doesn't surprise her that the boss is now the President of the United States, nor does it surprise her that said President has somehow managed to end world hunger and cure cancer while looking for a reason to instigate another world war in the hopes of conquering half of Europe before the end of summer. She's long since come to the conclusion that the boss—the President—will not stop until she's conquered the world and there's not a soul brave enough to ask what she'll do afterward.

Pierce and the President still like to go for drives with the windows down, singing duets to oldies on the radio. Shaundi is still in charge of wardrobe, among other things. She thinks they're the best thing that's ever happened to this country—random killing sprees aside—and when it's time for reelection, she's confident they'll remain in office for another term. As long as Madame President stops decking every single douchebag that tries to run against her, that is.

It's still not the same without Johnny.

But in spite of Kinzie's warnings, Shaundi never foresaw Zinyak and the alien invasion that takes their home.

Turns out that the President wasn't the only one with her eye on claiming Earth.

.

.

She relives Johnny's death a thousand times. And then she kills him a thousand times.

She's captured by her dickhead ex-boyfriend over and over again, and every single time, he puts a bullet in her head.

But one time, the last time, she's saved and the simulation—her _nightmare—_ends.

.

.

Ship life is a cold, dull, steel blue monotony flavored with nutrient paste and vitamin water.

There's no space and even less privacy; she's had shoeboxes bigger than her room. The crew practically showers and brushes their teeth on top of each other. Shaundi's so sick of the color blue—it's everywhere, on everything, on everyone, and it's maddening. Their one-piece suits are nicely insulated to combat the chill of space, but in cramped quarters where she can't turn around without tripping over something (or someone), they're stifling. As a result, she takes to keeping it half zippered.

She's come to learn more about the people on the ship than she's ever cared to. She knows that Asha likes action movies where the heroine gets the guy, and that Matt Miller has a serious _Nyte Blayde _obsession—so much that he mumbles Josh's name in his sleep. She's always known too much about Pierce, but she's never wanted to know that her name tumbles from his mouth when he jacks off, or that he has a fascination with anal sex—possibly because he's never tried it, which is also something she doesn't want to know.

She knows that Kinzie doesn't like the boss much, if at all. Neither does Keith, but he hides it better.

And she's not sure when it started—probably sometime after she'd seen her leader cry on that pool deck so many years ago—but Shaundi hasn't respected the boss in a long time. There's this underlying contempt for the President that she can't explain, the same hidden quality she sees reflected in Kinzie and Keith every time they speak of the boss. She doesn't know when their shot-caller stopped being an icon, a beacon, and became just a woman—a soft-spoken, charismatic woman with a terrible sense of humor and an itchy trigger finger.

She hates this disillusioned resentment. It's bitter and unfair. It makes avoiding that oddly guileless face so much easier than looking into those big eyes. If she could, Shaundi would turn in her resignation because a part of her mourns the death of the idealistic bohemian that once worshipped the boss like a goddess.

But Earth is gone and there's nowhere for a handful of humans—and one pint-sized maniac—to go, so she grits her teeth and bears it.

.

.

Johnny's alive and he's infecting the simulation.

Shaundi needs a drink, _right the fuck now_, because the boss—the President, the savior of the universe, what the fuck ever her title is nowadays—has gone wild-eyed crazy just like the old days and is punching the living shit out of Miller for daring to say that saving Johnny is a huge mistake. She's finally lost it, _all_ of it, and Shaundi gets where Kinzie is coming from, but it doesn't take a genius to know that the President will burn down the entire fucking galaxy just to get Johnny back. Fuck the world, fuck everyone on this ship, Johnny Gat is all that matters.

She hasn't seen their blood-soaked Athena like this in years and the old Shaundi, the one that's tucked away in the simulation, the one that used to shop for shoes and drugs and laughed with the boss as if staying by her side was all she'd wanted out of life, remembers how it felt to both love and fear her.

Shaundi's stuck between laughing and crying her eyes out as the President runs across the bridge to the power armor, long hair billowing behind her like a superhero's cape.

.

.

Of course, _of course_ they'd go to Genki Bowl the second Johnny's back. It's practically a date for those two psychos.

The crew is crowded around the monitors, spying on Johnny and the boss. Half of them have never met the legendary Gat and none of them know the boss like he does, so they're hanging off every word, soaking up every drop of information passed between two people who only ever truly let their guard down around each other. It's a total invasion of privacy, especially given how the conversation has an almost intimate tone in spite of the general carnage around them, but Shaundi can't really find it within herself to care very much.

They're making sappy, mushy fools out of themselves while simultaneously being effortlessly badass. Once, she swears Johnny is flirting with the boss, something about the way his mouth moves over his words hinting at more than just his usual teasing.

Her stomach churns.

"A hundred bucks those two will fuck by the end of the week," Pierce says, leaning over her shoulder. Shaundi wants to rip his tongue out.

It's not often Kinzie is surprised. "You mean they _haven't?_"

"_We can hear you,_" the boss growls from within the simulation. Perhaps it's the lighting, but she looks notably pinker than usual. She and Gat are reloading in a waiting area before the start of another match, hip cocked and long hair all over the place. She's dressed much nicer than usual, Shaundi notes; in the simulation, the boss has a single-minded focus on doing everything she can to fuck with Zinyak, so when accidents happen—like Kinzie forgetting to send her in with clothes, or Matt accidentally overriding her code with that of a toilet's—she doesn't care as long as she has her guns and her powers. But now, she's in some kind of sleek cocktail dress with killer heels to match, complete with jewelry and eyeliner. Even with her hair all askew, she looks breathtaking, and it's so blatantly obvious that she's made the effort for Gat. "_And how are you going to bet money you don't have?_"

"Sim cash," Pierce shoots back.

"Non,_ that will not do._" A pause. Johnny raises an eyebrow at the giant purple dildo bat the boss is idly twirling around. "_How 'bout… ah! Dish duty for a week._"

"The cleaning bots are responsible for the upkeep of the ship," CID intones. Shaundi hadn't noticed it—him, whatever—there. "But I can override their primary functions, if you'd like."

"How about toilet cleaning?" Asha chimes in deviously.

There's a unanimous groan all around; everyone knows about Pierce's constipation issues.

"That's disgusting," Shaundi chimes in as the buzzer sounds. The next round of Genki Bowl starts and she frowns when the boss rushes ahead, showing off. "I'm not going anywhere _near_ those toilets."

As the crew throws out idea after stupid idea around her, the dream team slaughters mascots for fun. They're sweaty, bloody, and unbelievably disheveled, but they're the happiest they've ever been and the knot in Shaundi's throat won't go the fuck away.

.

.

Johnny's humming '_Oh my darling, Clementine'_ when she walks into the central hub, smirking to himself as he watches the boss in her terminal. Kinzie is beside him, tapping away on her keyboard, monitoring activity within the simulation, mumbling to herself every now and again.

"Bet she was one helluva a president."

In spite of everything, Shaundi has to agree. "That's because we kept her ass out of trouble. You wouldn't believe the fuss she made about not being able to paint the White House purple."

He doesn't address the venom in her voice. "Wish I coulda been there."

"Me too."

They lapse into silence with Johnny watching the boss like he always has and Shaundi watching Johnny like she always has.

"_What?_" screeches Kinzie, startling them. "No, no, I'm _not—no!_ What's more important: avenging the Earth, or a pet Warden?"

Shaundi rolls her eyes. The boss can be so ridiculous.

She doesn't realize she's said this aloud until Johnny chuckles. "Outta her fuckin' mind, more like."

Pot and kettle at its finest.

"You shoulda seen her back in the day. Tiny little thing, barely old enough to smoke." His eyes cloud over in nostalgia. "Never said a word, either. I didn't think she'd survive her canonizing, you know? But that crazy bitch proved me wrong. _Man_, those were the days."

"Oh, for _fuck's_ sake!" Kinzie punches her keyboard. "Johnny, can you tell your girlfriend that it is _impossible_ to giftwrap a goddamn Warden for you? I think she's forgetting that she's not in the real world and she's driving me _insane! _There's only so much I can do within the parameters of Zinyak's simulation and none of those include bending the laws of reality." She falters. "Well, any more than usual."

Johnny laughs. "She always did have weird tastes in gifts. Remember your twenty-third birthday, Shaundi?"

How can she forget? That poor elephant had no idea what it was in for. "I thought we agreed never to mention that again."

"Yeah, but you gotta admit, seeing you—"

"_Johnny!_" Ass.

He throws an arm around her shoulders, cackling. "You're so uptight. Kinzie, what's the boss up to, anyway?"

Kinzie sighs. "Starting a fight, what else? Only, instead of killing everything, she's trying to… to _tame_ them."

"Shit. Load me in, I gotta see this."

Shaundi and Kinzie spend the next few hours watching the boss try to train a Warden while Johnny uses the surrounding Zin as target practice, letting her have her fun. Once in a while, he'll call out some advice, referencing how he once trained a Labrador to fetch his favorite gun, and the boss becomes so enamored with the idea that she starts throwing her weapons across the city, hoping the Warden will grab them for her.

When Johnny starts doing the same, Kinzie pinches the bridge of her nose. "Stop _enabling_ her!"

It takes a lot of yelling (Kinzie) and a lot of goofing off (Johnny) and way more whining than is appropriate for a woman her age (the boss), but Kinzie finally caves in; furiously typing, the hacking expert whips up a virus based on one of the boss' powers and infects the Warden with a shrinking program. It's still an angry little shit, but now its roar is just a pitiful mewl that has even Shaundi cooing, and Johnny immediately sets upon teaching Carlito (Shaudi doesn't dare comment on the name) the difference between his assault rifle and his shotgun while the boss plays with its spurs.

They completely ignore Kinzie when she tries to remind them about a rift the boss was supposed to investigate.

Shaundi sighs. She'd forgotten how fucking ridiculous they can be.

.

.

She's sent on a mission to retrieve Johnny and the boss from a problem within the simulation when her tongue slips.

"I'm not gonna let anything happen to Johnny. I-I mean, to either of you."

It's a small slip. Microscopic, really. But nothing, _nothing_ gets past the boss and when they're back on the ship, those big eyes are narrowed at her. Shaundi keeps her chin up, her shoulders squared in defiance, and walks purposefully back to the bridge from whence they'd called her. The sway of her hips is for Johnny and the attitude is for the boss, but the steady stride is all for her, because that old Shaundi is really, really worried about what she may have given away.

.

.

Shaundi walks in on the longest, most drawn-out, most _clichéd_ confession in the universe.

She doesn't mean to. Like most things she walks in on, she's just minding her own business. It's not her fault that Johnny likes to hang around the weapons locker, or that the boss hadn't thought to take her sappy words somewhere private. In fact, Shaundi's not the only one eavesdropping; Asha's hiding behind a punching bag, Pierce is semi-hidden behind the common room's doorway, and Kinzie is leaning over his shoulder, all of them with eyes on the couple of would-be lovebirds having the most embarrassingly intimate moment in history. The boss _never_ completely thinks things through and Shaundi's pretty sure she runs completely on homicidal impulses a majority of the time.

Pierce grabs her before she gets too far, forcing her to watch next to a fidgeting Kinzie. She'd rather run back to her room, in all honesty, but she doesn't want to draw attention to herself—not when she's sure she's three seconds away from falling apart.

"For years, I thought you were dead and I blamed myself for it. When you were gone, there was a hole in my life I tried to fill with anything—"

Johnny looks like he's trying desperately not to laugh. "Boss," he tries.

"—partying, killing, sex… sometimes a combination of the three… but nothing worked—"

A chuckle escapes him. "Boss," he tries again.

"—nothing ever made me feel_ alive_ like you did—"

It's such a cheesy line, but her voice, so soft and sincere, makes it sound achingly sweet and dear. It's not something any of them have ever seen or heard from the boss, something none of them would have ever imagined coming from her. She looks human again and Shaundi still doesn't know how to swallow that.

The strange gravity of the situation must have finally gotten to Johnny, because the smirk turns just as soft as the boss' voice. "Clem," he murmurs.

At her side, Kinzie squeals into Pierce's shoulder, trying to muffle herself. Pierce waves his hands around furiously, motioning for silence.

"—and I always thought it was just because I was depressed—"

"_Clementine_," Johnny bites out, still trying to stop the lengthy monologue.

Shaundi's brain stutters.

Clementine? _Clementine?_

As in, '_Oh my darling, Clementine'_ Clementine?

The boss' name is fucking _Clementine?_

"—but now, it's made me realize how much I need you—"

Exasperated, Johnny swoops in and kisses her like some over-the-top, B-rated rom-com, effectively shutting up the boss—Clementine, _fuck_, that sounds so fucking _weird_—and throwing Kinzie into a squealing fest. In her excitement, she starts punching Pierce's back, and Shaundi takes the opportunity to run away to the bathroom, where she can privately regurgitate everything she's ever eaten.

.

.

They're fucking everywhere.

_Literally_.

Shaundi's on her way to the bathroom, minding her own business—_again—_when she catches them going at it like fiends against the lockers. Right there, in full view of everyone, bare assed and shamelessly devouring each other. They don't even stop when she lets out a tiny squawk of surprise; Johnny glances at her, nods, and continues to pound into the President as if there's no tomorrow. She finds them again when she ventures into the common area for some coffee, and again on the staircase when she's on her way to bed. When she finds them _on_ her bed, she snaps.

"_Jesus fucking Christ!_" She throws her mug at them. _That_ catches their attention. "I am _so sick and fucking tired_ of seeing your naked _fucking_ asses everywhere! You have your own fucking rooms—_use_ them for fuck's sake!"

From somewhere down the corridor, she hears Pierce cry, "'Bout damn time!"

Flushed and panting on her knees with a sweaty Gat hovering behind her, the boss leans up on her elbows and whines. "But your bed's closer to the bridge."

She doesn't like that breathy voice or the fact that they may have done this before. On _her_ bed. There's barely any privacy on this damn ship and she's not putting up with them invading her space like horny teenagers. "If I find one drop of your… _love juice_, I will kill you."

Johnny laughs, a breathy chuckle Shaundi also doesn't like. "_Hah_, she said 'love juice'."

"Get. The fuck. _Outta my goddamn room!_"

They do, but not before stealing her sheets to cover themselves with.

But what's worse than finding the man she may have some serious feelings for fuck the woman Shaundi used to love is that everyone's following their example; it's like everyone needed a small push in order to give into their baser urges. In no time, she stumbles across Asha and Matt mid-coitus on the bridge, then _Kinzie_ and Matt—she can honestly say she didn't see that one coming (_hah_)—and then, only once, Asha and Pierce in the common room.

The ship's turned into a fucking orgy.

Trying to rub all of the naked asses from her eyes, Shaundi plops in front of Ben, the only other one aside from Keith that isn't trying to bang the nearest hole. He looks up from his writing pad, taking in her haggard appearance, and casually asks if she'd like him to help alleviate some of the tension in her shoulders.

She gives up. "Sure." It's been ages anyway, and his voice is sexy enough to help. "But we're doing it in _your_ room and if you slap my ass, I will hurt you."

Ben grins. "No problem."

.

.

Carlito, the boss' pet Warden, dies while she's running around in the simulation. In her grief, she kills everyone.

_ Everyone_.

The simulation glitches so bad that Kinzie calls for an emergency extraction, worried that the simulation will crash with the boss' consciousness still inside. They manage to get her out and are told to wait a day or two before going back in. Shaundi's fine with that—she'd much rather stay on the bridge than go in there, where her old self still lurks about—but the boss is one dick joke away from murdering them all.

No one except Johnny is allowed to talk to her for a while.

Coincidentally, Gat is also confined to the infirmary for a while.

.

.

When Pierce launches into a confession that makes the boss' pale in comparison, Shaundi prays for a beer.

.

.

Keep what you kill, Kinzie had said.

Amid gunfire and a public showdown between Zinyak and Clementine, humanity's last chance had stormed the mothership as the boss' backup. And they'd won. And now the boss sits on a throne too big for one human, tired and sweaty and sporting a few bruises, hair all askew, skin flushed from exertion. She's proud, triumphant, and there's a gleam in her eyes—not the mad one, a different one, a _human_ one.

And there's a servant, one simply dubbed ZJ, that's talking about a time machine.

"Don't tease me," Pierce says, his voice maniac bright.

The boss, Clementine, looks at them. Shaundi feels annoyed, exasperated, hopeful—but, beneath it all, there is an overwhelming awe she hasn't felt since her stoner days, and an appreciation for this woman she's followed through disillusionment, heartbreak, and loss. Through good times, through bad times, through the end of their world, and she's still here, still looking up at a woman that likes to jump off buildings in heels and pours her heart out in the middle of a ship and thinks the perfect idea for a date is Genki Bowl and a number five (no cheese) from Freckle Bitch's.

"Let's go on a field trip." _Let's fuck with history_, is what she's really saying.

Shaundi sobs.

The boss—Clementine, _oh my darling, Clementine—_is alarmed, hopping down the steps to her side. "Shaundi? Shaundi, hey, what—?"

"_I love you!_" she cries. Her eyes are bleeding tears and she doesn't care that's she's a making a fool of herself in front of everyone in the universe because this woman, this crazy fucking woman she's loved and hated with all of her heart, this woman with her ridiculous voice and her ridiculous schemes and her ridiculous logic, is still the woman she will follow till the end of her days.

Clementine laughs and pulls her close. "Love you too, silly girl."


End file.
